Aquarium Near Me at Tokyo Skytree: Sumida Aquarium's Penguins and Jellyfish

Sumida Aquarium fills the fifth and sixth floors of Tokyo Skytree Town Solamachi at 1-1-2 Oshiage, Sumida-ku, and an adult ticket costs ¥2,700. It opens 10am to 8pm on weekdays and 9am to 9pm on weekends and holidays, with last entry an hour before closing. For anyone in Asakusa or Oshiage typing aquarium near me, this is the indoor option at the foot of the Skytree, built around an open penguin pool and a jellyfish lab.

The aquarium opened on May 22, 2012, and is run by the Orix group. On September 16, 2026, it was registered as a museum under Japan's Museum Act, recognition for its breeding research, school outreach and the AQTION sustainability program it launched in 2021. Since opening it has also worked with Ogasawara Village on turtle conservation and island beach cleanups.

That closeness extends to the penguins' family lives. Yomogi, a female Magellanic penguin who had lived here since the 2012 opening, died on September 28, 2026, at an estimated 16. After roughly ten years without a partner she had paired with Chochin only last year. The aquarium publishes an annual Sumida Penguins Relationship Chart, and the 2026 edition is a favourite souvenir for regulars who follow the colony's pairings.

The centrepiece is an indoor, open-topped pool holding about 350 tons of water, spanning two floors. From the sixth floor you look straight down on swimming penguins. From the fifth you watch them from the side and from below, and splashes sometimes reach the rail. LED lighting follows the day, bright at midday and dim in the evening, when many birds fall asleep.

Four chicks hatched this spring, Jinbei, Kibi, Dango and Tofu, made their pool debut in July and now swim with the adults. The aquarium celebrated them with a SumiPen Cheers weekend on September 26 and 27, and panels near the pool explain how to tell the four apart. Penguin feeding talks appear on the daily program several times a day, at 10:30am, 1:30pm and 4pm on a typical October schedule.

Upstairs, Big Schale is an oval, open-topped basin about seven metres long holding around 500 moon jellies, one of the largest dish-style jellyfish tanks in Japan. With no acrylic between you and the water, you can watch the surface ripple as the jellies pulse. A glass-floored deck juts out over the tank. Drum-shaped tanks nearby show species such as the Pacific sea nettle.

All of the roughly 700 jellyfish of about 14 species on display were bred in-house, in the Lab on the fifth floor. The Lab sits in the Aqua Base, an open workspace where you can watch keepers raise jellies from polyps and, at the adjoining Kitchen counter, prepare fish for the penguins, fur seals and big tank. A 4:15pm jellyfish feeding is held at the Lab, while Big Schale feedings run at 10:15am and 5pm.

The largest tank recreates the sea around the Ogasawara Islands, a World Natural Heritage site about 1,000 km south of central Tokyo but still part of the metropolis. Around 450 fish of 45 species swim in water tinted the deep Bonin Blue of the islands, including sand tiger sharks, which in Japan live only near Ogasawara. Behind the tank, a row of small round Aquascope portholes gives a diver's-eye view into the same water.

At the Ogasawara Base, green sea turtles Hoshi and Sora, siblings that hatched on the islands on July 13, 2026, went on display on September 19 weighing 115g and 138g. Fifth-graders at Ogasawara Elementary School chose the names. The aquarium has raised turtles with Ogasawara Village since 2012 and returns them to the sea after about a year, so these two are only here until next autumn. Turtle feedings appear at 10:30am, 1:30pm and 4:30pm.

The coral reef zone has four tanks that can be viewed from all sides, including a 5.5-metre garden eel tank with three species: Spotted garden eels, orange-striped splendid garden eels and white-spotted garden eels. Until November 16, the Not-a-Spotted-Garden-Eel exhibition, marking the 13th annual Garden Eel Day, uses a quiz gallery and life-size silhouettes to explain which is which. The Edo-rium is a gallery about 100 metres long showing around 15 goldfish varieties, from ryukin to ranchu.

One honest warning: Do not come between October 18 and 29 expecting the South American fur seals. The fur seal area is closed for renovation then, and fewer seals have been on show since October 6. If the fur seal tunnel is your reason for visiting, wait until November. The penguins, jellyfish and Ogasawara tank are all unaffected.

Web tickets go on sale 30 days ahead and are date-specific, or timed in peak season. They let you skip the ticket machines, where weekend queues form. High school students pay ¥2,000, elementary and junior high students ¥1,400, children from age three ¥900, and under-threes enter free. An annual pass costs ¥6,000 for adults. Allow about 90 minutes inside.

Re-entry works by stamping your own hand at the information counter. Flash, lights and tripods are banned, and large items such as carry cases and kick scooters can be refused at the door, and there are no coin lockers inside, so use Solamachi's. Strollers roll easily on the ramps and lifts, with stroller parking outside the fifth-floor entrance. Penguin Cafe sells a ¥550 black-and-white penguin soft serve and drinks including alcohol.

The official guides pitch daytime at families with children and evenings at couples and solo visitors stopping in after work. From 6pm the building switches to Blue Night Aquarium lighting, with dimmed galleries and sleeping penguins, and the garden eels get a 7pm feeding. If web tickets for your day are sold out, the Skytree Enjoy Pack bundles admission with the Tembo Deck, or try Konica Minolta Planetarium Tenku on East Yard 7F.

Tokyo Skytree Station on the Tobu Skytree Line is right below, and Oshiage (Skytree-mae), on the Hanzomon and Asakusa subway lines, is a five-minute walk underground. The trip takes about 16 minutes from Tokyo Station and 42 from Haneda. The entrance is on 5F, reached by a dedicated outdoor lift or escalator from West Yard 4F. Afterwards, walk west through Tokyo Mizumachi, the 2020 strip under the Tobu tracks, and cross the Sumida River Walk, open 7am to 10pm, to Sensoji in Asakusa.

Sumida Aquarium, Tokyo Skytree Town Solamachi 5F and 6F, 1-1-2 Oshiage, Sumida-ku, Tokyo. Phone 03-5619-1821. Open daily all year, 10am to 8pm on weekdays and 9am to 9pm on weekends and holidays, last entry one hour before closing. Private events close it early on November 13 at 6pm, November 19 at 6:30pm and November 30 at 5pm. Parking at Skytree Town costs ¥450 per 30 minutes. Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP for more Skytree-area plans.